We are excited to announce that Possess the World has been nominated for the Blogger Recognition Award, not once but twice. A huge thanks to a couple of our  favourite bloggers, Vanessa at Wanders Miles and Trupti at Girls Glamour, who kindly nominated us.

What is the Bloggers Recognition Award?

The Award is similar to the Leibster Award, for which, you may remember, we also received a nomination.  The Blogger’s Recognition Award, is nominated by our peers and recognises bloggers who are obviously investing time and energy into creating a fabulous on-line presence and brand. Yes that is us to a tee, fabulous!

What does the Award mean?

It means that our peers, other bloggers, recognise that Possess the World is a quality travel blog and that someone is reading our work. WOOHOO!

So what happens now?

The nominated Blogger must:

  • Thank the blogger who nominated them and provide a link to their blog (please click through the link to Wanders Miles and Girls Glamour Blogs)
  • Write a post to show the award (you are reading it)
  • Give a brief story of how the blog started (keep reading below)
  • Give 2 pieces of advice to new bloggers (yes, really!)
  • Nominate 15 other bloggers for the Blogger Recognition Award (not hard given all the quality work out there)
  • Comment on each blog and let them know they have been nominated for the award, include a link to the nomination blog (this one)

 

The Possess the World Story

We started out writing witty and amusing Travel Tales (or so we thought) to keep friends and family in touch with our frequent travels. Initially this was a private blog but when we started out on our 12 month travel adventure or “the year of living dangerously” as we termed it, we decided to “go public”.  That quickly grew into designing a website and now a full time job for Cath, with support from Ian.

We are an Australian couple, who have grown up children and want to spend time travelling the world, rather than sitting at home waiting for something exciting to happen or be asked to babysit.  We have been travelling together on and off for 5 years and in 2017 we have been “overseas” for the whole year, at this stage we plan to be in Australia in January 2018 but for how long, who knows?

We want to use the knowledge we have gained to inspire people, through stories, to leave the tour bus, live like a local and travel for longer.  We also recognise that travelling in your middle age (or older) is a very different experience to travelling as a youngster and with Cath’s experience in the health sector over 20 years we are well placed to help traveller’s find relevant, reliable and up to date health information.

Advice for New Bloggers

We still feel pretty new in the blogging world and are continuing to learn new skills all the time but as we have to give some advice, here goes:

  1. Have a robust long term plan- we have all read the get rich quick from blogging posts and they sound great but like everything in life, blogging is not a magic ticket to free travel and wealth.  Sure, you can buy followers on Instagram, you can spend hours trawling Twitter for “influencers” and you can start making money from Google Ads but it’s not a long term plan for a business. You need to have business and marketing plans with strategies, goals and performance measures before you can ever start thinking this is a job.  And most of all you need patience, it will not happen overnight.
  2. Learn from your Peers- Other bloggers who are or have taken the same journey as you are your most valuable resource. They may not be in your niche, or even have the same interests as you but you can learn from their experience. They can assist you with IT issues, marketing, feedback and support but more importantly they understand your issues, frustrations, disappointments and will celebrate your wins with you too.  It doesn’t matter how you find them make sure you find them because like any other job, you need someone who understands the field to help you along the way.

AND THE NOMINEES ARE:

  • Ryan for his blogs about adventure, food and politics around the world at Our Little Blue Rock
  • Hanna for her blogs about her travel adventures and great photos at ReachingHot
  • Our favourite local and travel bloggers in the UAE theXpats
  • For making us hungry with posts about incredible food and wine Get in my Belly
  • Manmeet at Confessions of a FOMOist for inspiring story telling and travel writing
  • Malalai at Secrets of Greatest Minds for her inspiration and tips for new and old bloggers
  • Jayashree Trao of Evergreen Dishes for her amazing Indian recipes with a touch of culture on the side
  • Monika at The Mo-Mo Talk who inspires us to write well, tells great stories and has the occasional chocolate cake
  • Malini from Lakes and Lattes, who inspires us to keep travelling and story writing through her adventures and great recipes
  • Martha from the Quirky Globetrotter for uncovering hidden gems and sharing them with us
  • Hrishi and Anushka at Roam On Our Own, who like us have itchy feet and love to share their stories with you
  • Amy from Learn Blog Photography , who has taught Cath heaps about taking better photos and inspires us to keep learning
  • Helene from HC Lifestyle Blog for her positive, inspiring, beautiful blog and posts
  • For the best original idea and artwork we have seen for ages, Sabrina at Keya’s World
  • Ambuj whofocusses on home stay accomodation in India at AirBnB Nation

 

As always we appreciate your feedback so feel free to contact us or leave a comment below.

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